Seriously? She studied Dawn with this new information. She didn’t look pregnant. Not that she would know. None of her friends, even the few who were married, had kids.
Dawn met her gaze and nodded. “That’s why we wanted a house up here, away from it all. And he’s right. I’m going to need help.” She tilted her head and gave Beth an Academy Award-winning smile. “So what do you think? Could you take me on?”
CHAPTER 3
“You have twenty minutes to get your stuff together and leave.” Vivienne spat the words at Maggie like bullets. “And don’t be taking any equipment that doesn’t belong to you. In fact, I have a full inventory upstairs. I’ll get it so we can compare notes before you go.”
“I bet you do, bitch,” Maggie muttered once the kitchen was empty. She banged open a green enamel cabinet and pulled out a black case containing all her stuff—as if ergonomic knives, peelers, and zesters costing a small fortune could ever be called stuff. Tools maybe, fine instruments definitely, but never just stuff. Jaws clenched, she unfolded the case to reveal one empty slip.
The paring knife was missing. She had been using it right before Vivienne rushed her out to get the broccoli. Back when she actually had a job. It still had to be here somewhere.
Maggie rooted around in one drawer and then opened the dishwasher. Where the hell was it? The kitchen was clean except for the plate in the sink. As usual lately, Vivienne had returned Beth Walker’s sandwich completely untouched and had dumped it there.
Old woman, my ass. They’re hiding something. I just know it.
Picking up the plate, she found the paring knife. It had been hiding under the dish right by the radish that Vivienne had tossed away earlier. She grabbed it, swiped down both sides with a kitchen towel, and slid it back where it belonged. The case was full, and since there was no way in hell she was staying for Vivienne’s last power play, she marched out of the room. She had her hand on the front door, ready to jerk it open, when she froze.
She was fired. She couldn’t be any more fired. Should she…?
She might as well.
Clutching the case to her side, Maggie started up the stairs. When her boots slapped the wood, she crept up on her tiptoes to kill the sound. At the top, she stiffened. There were closed doors up and down the hallway. Which one? She had to pick a side.
She went left and peeked into the first room. It was empty, so she tiptoed to the next one.
The door was ajar, and scuffling noises drifted toward her, sounding as if someone was flipping through papers.
She held her breath and scooted forward.
Vivienne’s broad back hunched over a file cabinet.
Two quick steps and Maggie made it past her.
A dim light came from beneath the door at the end of the hall. That must be the one.
She pushed the door open just an inch and paused. When no poison darts shot out at her, she swung it open the rest of the way.
It took a second for her eyes to adjust to the light.
A small woman lay on a hospital bed at the far end of the room. She wasn’t moving. Maybe she was sleeping really deeply, but Maggie couldn’t see the rise and fall of her chest. She had to get closer.
Maggie glanced both ways before stepping into the room. Stepping up to the bed, she whispered, “Ms. Walker, are you okay?”
No response.
Maggie drew a finger along Beth’s wrist, feeling for a pulse. There it was—regular, if a bit slow. She was alive, but that didn’t mean she was okay. Maggie circled the fragile wrist with her whole hand and shook it gently.
“Ms. Walker? Ms. Walker?”
Her eyes fluttered open at her name but, within a beat, closed again.
This wasn’t an ordinary nap. She almost looked drugged.
Maggie scanned the bedside table. A pill bottle on its side and a bunch of pills lay scattered on its top. A few had even fallen to the ground. Vivienne didn’t strike her as the clumsy type. What if Beth had tried to do something stupid? She reached out.
“Leave her alone!”
Maggie jumped back about a foot as Vivienne spun around the corner.
Beth let out something between a moan and a sigh and rolled over, away from them both.
Maggie fought the urge to rush back to the bed and shake Beth awake. Instead, she thrust her knife case out toward Vivienne and tried to look innocent. “Sorry, I thought I was supposed to come up here to show you what I was taking.”
“I was coming down to you!” Vivienne waved the inventory list in the air.
“Oh, sorry.” Maggie shrugged and took a small step back to the bed.
“No, you don’t. You need to leave!” Vivienne herded her to the door. She waved her hands aggressively; the list in her right hand snapped in the air with the movement. “First I catch that other girl snooping around up here and now you.”
The other girl? Maggie filed that tidbit away for later and motioned to Beth. “What’s wrong with her?”
“Nothing. She’s just sleeping.”
“That isn’t just sleeping. Do you think I’m an idiot? What are those pills?” Maggie tried to dart back to the bed.
Vivienne lurched and cut her off at the pass. “Everything’s fine, and you need to lower your voice or we’ll wake her. She always takes a nap this time of day,” Vivienne said, but her voice had a pinched quality to it. She directed Maggie to the door and, as soon as they were outside in the hall, shut it tight.
“So you’re staying with that. She’s napping?”
“I am. And now you need to leave. You no longer work here. If I have to, I will take more stringent measures.”
A crazy vision of bonking Vivienne over the head with her knife case and rushing the room rose in Maggie’s mind. But then what? Sitting by Beth’s side until she woke up? Shaking her violently awake until she gave the woman a stroke? She had to go about this much more systematically. “Okay. Okay. I get it. I’m going. Just promise me you’ll get her to eat.”
“That’s no longer your concern.”
“Yeah. I get that too.”
Vivienne grunted her response and jabbed Maggie’s shoulder with a thick finger to get her moving toward the stairs.
Outside, straddling her bike, Maggie took one last look at the house. It sat serenely in the forest, the afternoon sunshine streaming onto its roof. From this perspective, Maggie could actually believe that everything inside was on the up and up. That the little old woman was napping and that Vivienne, working all on her own out here, was just really rough around the edges. It certainly would be easier to ride down the driveway and leave it all behind if she believed that. No good could come from her digging around anyway. Her gut had gotten her into trouble before. Lots of times, actually; she just couldn’t help herself.
No longer my concern? We’ll see about that.
Maggie pedaled rapidly through town, cutting around cars and tourists, barely missing some by inches. Finally, she skidded up to the shopping center in the middle of town and clambered off her bike. She wheeled past The Lumberyard, the Springs’s trendy gastro-pub. Women of all shapes and sizes spilled out onto the terrace with pint glasses of craft beers and sunburns probably from a day on the Tall Tree River. Two shops into the mall, Maggie leaned her bike up against the colorful storefront of Made From Scratch and popped inside the bakery.
Lauren, her ex, handed a red velvet cupcake to a giggling couple whose arms were wrapped so tightly around each other they might as well have been one organism. One of the women reached into her pocket for money while the other took the cupcake. Cooing, the second woman fed little bites to her partner as they walked out.
“Were we ever like that?” Lauren stared after the departing couple.
“God, I hope not. They’re way too into each other.” Maggie watched as one woman slid a hand into her partner’s back pocket. “But that might have been the problem.”
“Yeah, that and a few other things.” Lauren laughed and threw her an air kiss. The laugh turned into a true smile. �
��What do you need, Mags?”
“Do you have any Lemon Lovers left?” Maggie scanned the case below the counter. “I don’t see any.”
“There’s a few in the back. How many do you need?”
“Just one.”
“Going to see George?”
“Yeah. It always gets me in the door.”
“Do I even want to know why this time?”
“No.”
When Lauren headed toward the back of the store, Maggie watched her. Her graceful walk was by far her best trait. Even now Maggie found it mesmerizing. They had been good for a while, but never great. And when they both realized that truth, the parting had been remarkably easy.
Lauren returned with a small blue bag and handed it to Maggie.
“Thanks.”
“No problem. Hey, you teaching out at the gym tonight? Chris still hurt?” Lauren asked.
“Yeah. You coming?”
“Probably. I’ll see you there if I do.”
Maggie was halfway out the door when she eyed the empty space in the case where the Lemon Lovers should have been. She spun around as an idea jumped in her mind. “Lauren? Can I have my old job back?” She hurried the words out, but not as fast as the heat flooded into her cheeks.
“Oh, Mags, what happened with Beth Walker?”
Maggie shrugged. “It didn’t work out.”
Lauren raised an eyebrow.
Maggie shuffled her feet in response. Lauren always made her feel a little too much like a kid with her hand caught in the cookie jar. Usually, Lauren was right. That had also been part of the problem.
“I don’t know,” Maggie said. “The bitchy physician’s assistant or whatever the hell she is, we didn’t really get along. And today I might have let fly a few things to the boss lady from the City that I shouldn’t have.”
“Well, there’s a shocker.”
Rolling her eyes, Maggie opened her mouth to tell Lauren what she had seen upstairs, but then she changed her mind at the last minute. “So what do you think? Is there a place for me here?” She slapped the blue bag against her leg nervously.
“You know you’re going to have to get up early again?”
“I do.”
“So will you? I mean repeatedly, not just once.”
“I will.” She cringed at the harsh edge to her voice and tried to beat down the embarrassment over her situation. Several deep breaths later she said, “Five o’clock sharp. I’ll be the model employee.” When that didn’t get her anywhere, she added, “Lauren, I’m in a bit of a tight spot here. What do you say?”
Lauren bit her lip while her gaze darted around the store. “We’re good friends now, and I’m not sure that our working together is the best idea.”
Maggie nodded. She understood. She had left Lauren a little bit in the lurch when she quit last time.
“You know you change your mind at the drop of a hat. Have you really thought this out? This is what you want?”
Maggie nodded a little too quickly.
“I’d be crazy to say yes. But I’d be a fool to say no too. You’re the best pastry chef I’ve ever met, and I shouldn’t tell you this, but my sales fell by twenty percent when you left. Besides, Pick of the Litter has just ordered a hundred of those doggie cake pops. No one decorates them as well as you do. So what do you say? You want to start right away?”
“Absolutely!” She grinned. “But I got something to do first. I’ll be right back.” She opened the front door again. “Thanks, Lauren. I owe you.”
“Okay. I’ll be here…waiting… As always.” Lauren pursed her lips.
She was right. Maggie couldn’t blow this. There wouldn’t be another chance. Maggie rushed up to Lauren and threw her arms around her. Lauren felt big and solid, like the rock of Gibraltar, in her arms.
“I really mean it. I won’t let you down this time. Thank you.”
Lauren squeezed tight and then pushed her away, laughing “Okay. You goof. I’ll see you later. Just don’t leave me hanging.”
Leading with the blue bag, Maggie marched down the hallway at the Steelhead Springs sheriff’s station. She stuck only her hand into an open door and waggled the bag back and forth.
“That better be a Lemon Lover, and it better come with no strings attached.” Her brother’s strong voice flowed into the hall.
“You got it half right.” Maggie grinned and scooted into the small office.
Her brother sat behind a big desk with a Deputy George Chalon nameplate on the edge. Paperwork was spread so thick on its surface, no wood showed at all. George let out an exaggerated groan as his hand jutted out for the bag. “Yes, please.” Sinking his teeth into the cupcake, he groaned again. This time with happiness. “Oh, I’ve really missed these.” His mouth was full to overflowing. “I think I was sadder than either you or Lauren when you two broke up.”
“Yeah. I think so too.” Maggie slid out the extra desk chair and sat down. She watched her brother tear into the cupcake with a smile. Like all chefs, she enjoyed watching people eat with gusto, especially when the recipe was hers. For a few minutes the only sound in the room was contented chewing.
George licked his fingers and stuffed the cupcake wrapper back into the bag. “Why do I feel as if I’ve just made a deal with the devil?”
“All you have to do is listen.” Maggie scooted the chair closer to his desk. She told him the whole story right from the beginning when Lea had told her never to ask why to that afternoon.
“But she was alive, right?” George asked when she had finally stopped talking.
“She was. But not really responsive.”
“Because she was sleeping.”
“Well, yeah, I guess. But what about those pills? Why would they be spilled all over the table?”
“Did you see a medical chart?” Her brother avoided the question.
“No, of course not.”
“So you don’t know what they were. They could have been prescribed or vitamins. Did you see any sign of distress other than her sleeping deeply?”
“George—”
“This may come as a shock to you, Maggie, but you’re not a doctor.”
She rolled her eyes. “You got to believe me. There’s something not right out there. I know it.”
Her brother just pursed his lips and shook his head.
“George, seriously, I’m not making this up.”
“Cuz you certainly don’t have a history of that type of behavior. You never imagine scenarios that aren’t true.” When Maggie sent him a questioning look, he threw up his hands. “In third grade you were convinced that Mrs. Marsh was selling secrets to the Chinese, remember? You got suspended for three days when they caught you spying on her in the lunch room.”
“Oh, come on. I was just a kid.”
“Or what about last month when you decided that that valet guy at Roscoe’s was driving the cars while we ate.”
“To be fair, he quit before we could make a final determination.”
“Maggie, everyone knows that Beth Walker is a recluse. No one has seen her in town for decades. Since she bought Fern House in the eighties I think. Besides, there’s never been a hint of trouble out there, and her own brother told us all that she was heading downhill, both physically and mentally, before he died.”
Maggie swallowed while she considered how to handle this. George was Beth Walker’s best hope. “Make fun of me all you want. But I know that I’m right this time.”
“Are you sure this isn’t about that physician assistant out there? You know how you get when you’re excited or when people get in your face. I’ve heard you tell Mom more than once that Vivienne’s a bitch.”
“That’s not the word I used. And, yes, I’m sure this isn’t about Nurse Ratched. George, can you just this once trust me and look into it?” George was her best friend. When they had been kids, he’d always had her back, and to have him not believe her now stabbed at her heart.
He sighed and rolled his head around in a half-nod. �
�Okay. I’ll poke around in this a little bit. Let’s get this clear, though. I’m not going to put my neck on the line, but I’ll see what I can dig up.”
Maggie pursed her lips.
“It’s the best I’m willing to do.”
“Okay. It’s a start.” And it was. If she was being honest, Beth Walker might have only been sleeping. She knew lots of people took sleeping pills or pain pills by their own choice. Maybe she had overreacted.
And George was right too; the bad vibes had really come from Vivienne and Lea, and now that she had no access to the house anymore, this wasn’t going to be an easy fix. She could kick herself for not being more aggressive when she had the chance. But life wasn’t lived on should’ves and could’ves. Only in the now. She had to be sure for her own sake as much as Beth Walker’s.
“You coming out to Mom’s for dinner tonight?” George broke into her thoughts.
“No, Chris’s hurt, so I’m taking his class over at the gym. You want to come out there and climb some rock walls instead? Get away from Sarah and the girls?”
“I’d love to, but Sarah would kill me.”
“Then don’t. Despite what you may think, I can only handle one crazy scenario at a time.” She held out a closed fist for her brother, who bumped it immediately. “Thanks, bro.”
Nikka pulled into the garage of her condo building well after dark, tired but clearheaded. Somewhere on Highway 101, she had mostly convinced herself that she hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary up in Steelhead Springs. Just a woman who needed extra help with her daily routines and was plainly asking for it. Nikka had no room in her plans for a woman in need of real help. Besides, the crumpled-up piece of paper on the car’s floor mat started to loom larger and larger in her mind. What if it wasn’t just an excuse for Lea to have a private conversation with the crazy bike woman? What if she had really wanted her to deliver it to Vivienne? Nikka liked her days wrapped up in neat packages. The loose end of the note niggled at her.
She wasn’t used to spending so much time behind the wheel, and when she pulled herself out of the car, her muscles tensed. She whispered a promise to throw more yoga into her daily routine and squatted down stiffly to pat the driver’s side floorboard. Where was that note?
Heartwood Page 4